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Lot Essay
‘My system, which is a true system, consists of private passions and curious interests and, in every case, something mystical’
–Per Kirkeby
Executed in 1965, Untitled is large-scale example of Per Kirkeby’s early works on masonite. Created at the dawn of his practice, these works would come to form the crucible of his aesthetic, establishing a lasting fascination with the relationship between structure and intuition. Originally a student of geology in his native Denmark, Kirkeby was deeply inspired by the natural world. Between 1958 and 1963 he undertook several study trips to Greenland, where he began to depict the beauty of the Arctic landscape. At the same time, the artist became increasingly involved with the experimental Fluxus and Minimalist scene in Scandinavia throughout the early 1960s, fuelled by his meeting with Joseph Beuys the year before the present work. The masonite works, begun in 1963, evolved as a means of reconciling his painterly impulses with this avant-garde milieu. Though painted in rich, tactile layers, the square blocks could be arranged on the wall in interchangeable sequences, thus lending them a sculptural, performative quality. As Jill Lloyd explains, ‘This method of containing the subjective act of painting, which involved a mixture of gestural brushwork and collage, within a strictly disciplined and objectifying framework, initiated a practice that which was to have lasting consequences for Kirkeby’ (J. Lloyd, ‘Per Kirkeby: The Marriage of Grief and Reason’, in Per Kirkeby, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1998, p. 10). The interaction between system and chaos would come to inform much of the artist’s later sculptural and painterly work: for Kirkeby, it was a dialogue that spoke directly to the mysteries of nature itself.
‘My system, which is a true system, consists of private passions and curious interests and, in every case, something mystical’, claims Kirkeby (P. Kirkeby, Billedforklaring, Borgen 1968, p. 23). Resonating with the concerns of German Neo-Expressionism, in particular the work of Georg Baselitz, Kirkeby’s paintings engage with their subject matter on an emotive, rather than a literal, level. ‘I like to get pictures going with some form of battleground in which certain things have to be defeated in order that something else may emerge’, he explains (P. Kirkeby, Samtaler med Lars Morell, Borgen 1997, p. 142). Though his work invites comparison with the languages of Tachism, Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism, among others, Kirkeby identifies particularly strongly with the work of Paul Cézanne: most notably the French master’s ability to create a lasting synergy between subject matter and execution. ‘I believe that Cézanne makes a connection in the way he speaks of the insight into Nature that one achieves later in life, which is also an insight into the nature of the picture’, he writes. ‘The picture, too, is nature. The forces that pile up in Mont Sainte- Victoire are no different from those that organize the picture. Perhaps, this is why his last pictures are built up like a hewn stone wall’ (P. Kirkeby, Håndbog, Borgen 1991, p. 150).
–Per Kirkeby
Executed in 1965, Untitled is large-scale example of Per Kirkeby’s early works on masonite. Created at the dawn of his practice, these works would come to form the crucible of his aesthetic, establishing a lasting fascination with the relationship between structure and intuition. Originally a student of geology in his native Denmark, Kirkeby was deeply inspired by the natural world. Between 1958 and 1963 he undertook several study trips to Greenland, where he began to depict the beauty of the Arctic landscape. At the same time, the artist became increasingly involved with the experimental Fluxus and Minimalist scene in Scandinavia throughout the early 1960s, fuelled by his meeting with Joseph Beuys the year before the present work. The masonite works, begun in 1963, evolved as a means of reconciling his painterly impulses with this avant-garde milieu. Though painted in rich, tactile layers, the square blocks could be arranged on the wall in interchangeable sequences, thus lending them a sculptural, performative quality. As Jill Lloyd explains, ‘This method of containing the subjective act of painting, which involved a mixture of gestural brushwork and collage, within a strictly disciplined and objectifying framework, initiated a practice that which was to have lasting consequences for Kirkeby’ (J. Lloyd, ‘Per Kirkeby: The Marriage of Grief and Reason’, in Per Kirkeby, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1998, p. 10). The interaction between system and chaos would come to inform much of the artist’s later sculptural and painterly work: for Kirkeby, it was a dialogue that spoke directly to the mysteries of nature itself.
‘My system, which is a true system, consists of private passions and curious interests and, in every case, something mystical’, claims Kirkeby (P. Kirkeby, Billedforklaring, Borgen 1968, p. 23). Resonating with the concerns of German Neo-Expressionism, in particular the work of Georg Baselitz, Kirkeby’s paintings engage with their subject matter on an emotive, rather than a literal, level. ‘I like to get pictures going with some form of battleground in which certain things have to be defeated in order that something else may emerge’, he explains (P. Kirkeby, Samtaler med Lars Morell, Borgen 1997, p. 142). Though his work invites comparison with the languages of Tachism, Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism, among others, Kirkeby identifies particularly strongly with the work of Paul Cézanne: most notably the French master’s ability to create a lasting synergy between subject matter and execution. ‘I believe that Cézanne makes a connection in the way he speaks of the insight into Nature that one achieves later in life, which is also an insight into the nature of the picture’, he writes. ‘The picture, too, is nature. The forces that pile up in Mont Sainte- Victoire are no different from those that organize the picture. Perhaps, this is why his last pictures are built up like a hewn stone wall’ (P. Kirkeby, Håndbog, Borgen 1991, p. 150).